1st Grade Word Problem Creation

One of the main focuses that one of my 1st Grade Teachers has been working on is student self-generated tasks. Students in this class are really comfortable using technology and she wants to challenge them to where students do all of the work on their own with minimal support from the teacher. Yesterday we started on that journey in which students had to create math problems and number sentences.  Students learned how to use the "duplicate" and the "group" tool in Explain Everything to maximize efficiency. We worked in stations for about 30 solid minutes, two days straight. Here is one of the student samples. I'll be posting more in the days to come.

Google Forms for Peer Feedback

My 5th grade students are on fire! In the past two weeks they have done some incredible things concerning their research reports! Two teachers are doing similar projects, and now they are at the point where they have tagged everything to their Thing Link and are wondering what to do next. One teacher really wants to focus on peer feedback so in return the other teacher wants to do the same thing. Today they exceeded my expectations- mainly because they did everything without me being present in the room! To be fair, I did give detailed instructions on how to do all of this, but the fact that the teacher worked through all of it with her students was AMAZING!

Ok so here's what happened:

First, students took their Thing Link project and exported it into Safari.
Next, they copied the URL from the address bar and pasted it into qrstuff.com in which they created a QR code.
Once they had their QR Code created, they saved it to their Camera Roll and imported it back into Pic Collage where they had to label it with their name as well as their topic.
Once they were finished, they saved it to the cloud in which I plan on printing them out for them and plaster our walls with QR Codes!

The end product looks simple, but there were MANY hoops they had to jump through in order to get this done!

With that said, students then started scanning each other's work in which they would read their "things" along with their research report. Once they were done with this, we had them scan a different QR code in which it took them to a pre-made Google Form. In this form they had to give one suggestion and one compliment to that student's work! Attached are a few snaps from today.

Here is an example of our Google Form:

Here are their responses:

Not Your Average 5th Grade Research Report!

Wow! I am so proud of my 5th graders! I dont even know where to begin! They have been going above and beyond on this research project lately! Most students are finishing up editing their work in Google Docs and have moved on to the peer review stage. I was honestly a little nervous about this part because this particular class has never done peer feedback, much less, submitted peer feedback via the Google Docs iPad app! However, this class exceeded my expectations when it came time to "go into someone's document" and edit it! To make things even better, the AM class "peer reviewed" the PM class and left feedback on how to improve!

As students are finishing up, the teacher is wondering what we do next? I had suggested that we start green-screening and she was on board! We started our first one today, but we expect to hit it hard whenever students finish taking STAAR!  Btw, check out the Thinglink example! See if you can find the document as well as the green-screen video!

          

A Truly Magical Moment!

No- I am not talking about the opportunity of trying on an Apple Watch... but rather introducing my 5th graders to Thinglink for their research report! For this project, our entire 5th grade is doing the same thing output wise, however each student is able to research an inventor or invention of their choice. Students used Thinglink to house all of their work such as references, images, articles and even their actual research paper! (This is currently a work in progress- they are doing this via Google Docs!) Long story short, students are loving the flexibility of this app and actually WANT to work on their report even when it is time to go to lunch, recess etc! We also recently discovered what "channels" are in Thinklink and have taken full advantage of how we can use them with students!

Below are a few projects that our 5th Graders are working on:

1st Try at Green Screening

A few weeks ago, one of my teachers told me that they had wanted to do something with green screening. After talking with them for a few minutes they said they were working with "first" "second" "third" "next" "last" etc. She had told me that they wanted to have a "kitchen set" where students would explain the procedures for making mud pie. I let her know right away that I had no idea how to green screen BUT I would reach out to someone who did know! Sure enough, another Digital Learning Coach from another campus came and helped us set up. Long story short, it wasnt as painful as imagined! We literally just shot the video, put it in an app and made a few tweaks. I know the students enjoyed it! Our hope is to share it with another campus and have them leave feedback by asking questions and suggestions! I am glad that both of us were able to try something new and take a risk! It sure paid off!!

Here is a link to the video: